


The Beast Within 22/?

by iantosgal



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Timelines, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 23:23:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iantosgal/pseuds/iantosgal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is back from his time with the Doctor and his team are keeping something from him, but what? Set after KKBB.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beast Within 22/?

The rift gave them six whole days of peace. Six days where there was only a couple of rogue weevils to round up and not much else.

They split the days into shifts. Jack and Ianto taking the evening right through the night till mid morning as they didn’t need the sleep the others needed and Tosh, Owen and Gwen coming in about ten am and taking the day shift, heading home at six. Martha had stuck around for a few days but had had to return to UNIT. All of them had taken advantage of the lull to take her out for dinner to say goodbye.

By day three, Ianto was climbing the walls. He’d done his allotted time of desk duty and finally been allowed to head out on weevil hunts without Owen’s disapproving glare burning into his skin. But weevil hunts where few and far between and there was nothing else happening. Everyone else was enjoying downtime, catching up on personal projects and digging into the many questions that still hung over them. But Ianto was just praying for something to happen and he never thought he would be praying for an alien invasion.

He spent every waking moment trying to find answers or pounding the treadmill. He was tired of the mysteries hanging over them and on his last run he’d broken the treadmill and was waiting for his replacement, ordered by a slightly worried looking Jack.

After that, Jack found other ways to distract Ianto. Long hours alone in the Hub with nothing to do meant plenty of rounds of naked hide and seek, which Ianto was now exceptional at, managing to find Jack in seconds every time. Jack had pouted and said Ianto had taken the fun out of the game but his protests changed to gasps as Ianto pulled him close, kissed him soundly and proceeded to fuck him into the nearest wall, pulling Jack’s legs up and round his waist as he rocked into him.

But even copious amounts of incredibly hot sex (complete with UNIT cap, thank you Martha) could not fill every moment and Ianto stared as his computer screen, which was still failing to find answers, and growled in frustration. He grabbed his firearm and headed down to the range. If he couldn’t work out he could at least work on his aim.

***  
Ianto’s prayers were answered when the rift alert blared through the hub at two AM the day after the new treadmill arrived. He hit the stop button on his treadmill and leapt off before it had even stopped. He grabbed his t-shirt and pulled it over his head as he ran up to the main hub.

“Small rift spike out in Splott park,” Jack said, already pulling his coat on, with a gleam in his eye which told Ianto he was just as desperate for some action as he was. “Let’s check it out.”

“I’ll drive,” Ianto said, grabbing the SUV keys and leading the way out of the Hub at a half run.

It took just ten minutes to get to the location of the spike but they spent the next two hours searching in the dark for anything that could have come through the rift. Even with Ianto’s improved eyesight, whatever had come through the rift was so small it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But the wolf buzzed under Ianto’s skin with the thrill of the hunt. His head flicked this way and that, eyes scanning the area for anything out of the ordinary, sharp ears listening for a sound that shouldn’t be there.

It was his nose that found it in the end. Something didn’t smell right. He sniffed the air experimentally and Jack chuckled.

“What?” Ianto said.

“It’s just nice to see you enjoying yourself,” he replied, with a smile.

Ianto smiled back and turned back to the bush that smelled wrong. He knelt down and put his hand under the leaves, feeling around the ground.

“Careful, Yan,” Jack warned.

His fingers brushed something cold and hard. Carefully, he pulled it out from its hiding place.

It was a book. No bigger than a standard paperback, with a metal cover inscribed with a language Ianto hadn’t seen before. He brushed a finger over the strange words and they began to glow softly, the book seeming to hum in his hands. He held his breath for a second but nothing else happened. He looked across at Jack who shrugged.

“Better bag it and tag it and get it home,” he said.

Ianto couldn’t help but think it was anticlimactic. He’d been hoping for something exciting, something to help get rid of some energy. The hunt had been fun and all, but the trip back to the Hub was lacking in the thrum of excited energy that had filled the SUV on the way out.

It was just a book. An alien book, sure. Probably full of alien bedtimes stories. But it was still just a book.

So why did Ianto feel so uneasy? Why were the hairs on the back of his neck standing up, tingling in trepidation?

***

The book was put through the standard tests which came up with nothing. It was harmless and on closer inspection, Tosh and Owen realised it was a medical journal. After clearing it with Jack, they adopted the book as their little pet project, taking it home and working together to translate and read the book, something they could enjoy together.

Ianto thought it was adorable and teased them for days.

It had been just over a week since Martha had headed back to UNIT when Gwen gave a little triumphant shriek from her desk and had everyone gather in the boardroom.

“I think I have a lead on the other wolf,” Gwen says.

In the silence that follows, Ianto snaps to attention, his back straight and eyes focussed on Gwen and her gap toothed smile that she can’t hide at his reaction. Weeks have gone by...no, months, and they haven’t found anything. In fact Ianto hadn’t even been aware that Gwen was still looking.

“It took me a while and a lot of digging and a lot of favours from Andy but this is what I’ve got,” she turned to the screen which was showing a rather large and ferocious looking brute of a man. His hair was dark and a large black tattoo could be seen on his thick neck, following the line of his polo shirt and then dipping beneath the collar. His arms and chest were heavily muscled and more tattoos adorned them. His eyes were dark and mean looking and his mouth was set in a scowl that made him look as if he was constantly ready for a fight. Something in Ianto bristled at the image, sensing the threat in him.

“His name is Janis Petrovs. Thirty-three years old, born in Latvia, he came over here when he was in his mid-twenties. He’s linked to a string of offences back in Latvia but they never had enough concrete evidence to convict him. Around the time Ianto was turned, Janis was hospitalised after picking up an injury that became infected. He said he was working on a building site, slipped and cut his leg on some spikes or something. I’ve seen the scratches and they look exactly like Ianto’s.”

“How did you see them?” Jack asked.

“We’ve been quiet,” Gwen said with a smile. “I did a little bit of surveillance with Rhys.”

“You took Rhys?”

“He wanted to be involved and it was date night.”

Ianto couldn’t help but laugh at that. Only Gwen could turn date night into a stake out.

“Anyway, I think he was turned at the same time as Ianto. I looked for footage of him around the time and I picked him up leaving his apartment and heading to bar. He stayed there for a few hours and then headed home through the park right near where we ran into the wolf. Too much of a coincidence if you ask me. I spoke to his neighbours and asked if they’d noticed anything odd about him but they were reluctant to talk. A little girl told me that sometimes she hears loud noises and howls coming from his apartment, then her mum took her inside and slammed the door in my face. Also a police report logged at the first full moon after he would have been turned said that police were called out to the apartment block after a fight broke out and the flat was almost destroyed but no one pressed charges and Janis wasn’t even there when the police arrived.”

“Because he was too busy wolfing out and running around Cardiff,” Ianto muttered. “Jesus, how did we miss this?”

“There’s more,” she pulled another picture up on the screen. A slender woman with long blonde hair that rippled past her shoulders, dark eyes that seemed to pierce the soul and fair skin that looked as though it could have been made from porcelain looked down at them. She was beautiful it was true, almost unnaturally so, but the sharp set of her eyebrows, the thin, mean set of her lips and the hardness of her eyes showed a darkness to her, hidden beneath the layers of beauty. “Velna Ronis. Also Latvian. Came over here with her twin brother, Niklaus Ronis about three months ago.”

Niklaus had the same porcelain skin of his sister, the same white blonde hair that he wore fairly long and swept back from his face. His jaw was heavy set giving his face a very strong attractiveness, his eyes a cold blue and his broad shoulders, thick chest and muscled arms that seemed to strain against his white t-shirt screamed strength. The siblings complimented each other perfectly, both beautiful, both strong in their own ways and Ianto felt his stomach twist. Janis Petrov had been bad enough but together with the Ronis siblings the three of them were terrifying.

“The Ronis twins were perfect when they arrived but each of them have gained a scar since they got here, both on their right arm and almost identical in shape and size.”

“So not accidental then,” Ianto interjected.

“Doubtful.”

“So what we’re saying here,” Owen said, “Is they’ve created some kind of group of wolves?”

“A pack,” Ianto said in a hushed voice.

“Jesus...” Owen breathed.

“So, Janis is the head of this pack.” Tosh said.

“I don’t know. I mean, sure he was turned at the same time as Ianto but he’s not exactly a brainy guy. He’s hired muscle for most of the crimes he has links too, never the brains of the operation. I don’t think he could come up with the idea of a pack let alone control the Ronis twins. Velna is cunning and Niklaus might be brawny but he’s not an idiot. They could run rings around Janis and take over the pack in seconds.”

“So who is leading the pack?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know. This is all I’ve found out so far. But I have a few leads that might lead us to the ‘Alpha’.”

“I’ll help,” Ianto said immediately and Jack nodded in agreement.

“Of course, the biggest problem we have now,” Tosh said, giving Ianto a sideways looks, “Is that we know there are a pack of wolves running around Cardiff every full moon and we have no idea if they can control themselves.”

“Even if they can, which I doubt,” Ianto replied. “I doubt they care. These are thugs that have been given a superpower. They’ll use it to get what they want, take out who they want and gain power.”

“So, we need to find a way to stop them,” Tosh said.

“How? I mean, even with Ianto we can’t take three wolves. There’s probably more than three, we’d be outnumbered and hopelessly outgunned,” Owen said.

“We could try and weaponize the frequency,” Tosh stated. She looked round at everyone and the grim looks on their faces. “We know it works against our furry friend, it might be our only option.”

“But if we use it in the field, Ianto would be compromised,” Jack pointed out. “We’d be even more outgunned without him.”

“Not if I can find a way to block the signal,” Owen said. “Some kind of earplugs or something to play over the comms or...”

“Or a chip to block out the wave that we could put in Ianto’ ear or something,” Tosh continued.

Owen nodded with a small smile then turned to Ianto the smile slipping from his face.

“It’ll mean more tests, mate,” he said apologetically.

“It’s our best option,” Ianto replied.

They all turned to Jack who was leaning back in his chair, hands pressed together in an arc in front of his lips and a look of intense contemplation in his eyes. His gaze flickered over to Ianto who raised a single eyebrow in challenge. Jack rose smoothly to his feet.

“Ianto, Gwen, go follow up those leads. We need to find this ‘Alpha’ and we need to find him fast. Continue surveillance on Janis and the Ronis twins, I wanna know where they go, who they speak to, what coffee they drink. They so much as look at someone funny, I better know about it. Tosh, Owen, get working on something to stop the frequency. You have the results from the last set of tests to use as a basis. Find a way to block it out and we’ll test it when you think you have something and not before. I’ll look at ways to weaponize the frequency. Comms on at all times.”

Orders given Jack strolled from the room, shooting Ianto a grin that Ianto couldn’t help but return.

After months of unanswered question after unanswered question, they finally, _finally,_ had something to go on.


End file.
